“My late father and his brother were born and raised on Hatteras Island which was a very isolated community until relatively recent times. Curious about their genetic ancestry, I had my uncle do the Family Tree DNA Family Finder test. His results for the Family (Population) Finder were:

The 8.63% Middle East was surprising since most if not all of his ancestors, going back 4 or more generations, were born on the OBX (Outer Banks). Most of the original families on Hatteras Island trace their roots back to the British Isles and western Europe.

Since my mother’s parents were immigrants from eastern Europe, I thought it would be interesting to know what contributions my maternal grandparents added to my genetic ancestry, so I submitted my DNA samples for the same test. The Population Finder test showed that I was Europe Orcadian 100.00% ±0.00%. I was shocked that some other population did not show in the results.

Can you help me understand how the representative populations are determined and why Middle East didn’t show in my sample?”

Yes, indeed, the dreaded “Middle Eastern” result. I’ve seen this over and over again. Let’s talk about what this is and why it might happen. As it happens, the fact that Ray is from Hatteras Island provides us with a wonderful research opportunity, because it’s a population I’m quite familiar with.

Given that Dawn Taylor and I administer the Hatteras Families DNA Projects (Y-line, mtDNA and autosomal), I have a good handle on the genealogy of the Hatteras Island Families. They are of particular interest because Hatteras Island is where Sir Walter Raleigh’s Lost Colonists are rumored to have gone and amalgamated with the Hatteras Indians. The Hatteras Indians in turn appear to have partly died off, and partly married into the European Island population. Both the Lost Colony Project and the Hatteras DNA Projects at http://www.familytreedna.com/public/HatterasFathers and http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~molcgdrg/hatteras/hifr-index.htm are ongoing and all Hatteras families are included.

As part of the Hatteras families endeavor, Dawn and I have assembled a data base of the Hatteras families with over 5000 early settlers and their descendants to about the year 1900 included. What Ron says is accurate. Most of the Hatteras Island families settled on the island quite early, beginning about 1710. Nearly all of them came from Virginia, some directly and others after having settled on the NC mainland first for a generation or so in surrounding counties. By 1750, almost all of the families found there in 1900 were present. So indeed, this isolated island was settled by a group of people from the British Isles and a few of them intermarried with the local population of Hatteras Indians.

Once on the island, it was unusual to marry outside of the island population, so we have the situation known as endogamy, which is where an isolated population marries repeatedly within itself. Other examples of this are the Amish and Jewish populations. When this happens, the founding group of people’s DNA gets passed around in circles, so to speak, and no new DNA is introduced.

Typically what happens is that in each generation, 50% “new” DNA is introduced by the other parent. When the new DNA is from someone nonrelated, it’s relatively easy to sort out using today’s DNA phasing tools. But when the “new” DNA isn’t new at all, but comes from the same ancestral stock as the other parent, it has the effect of making relationships look “closer” in time.

Let’s look at an example.

You carry the following average percentages of DNA from these relatives:

Parents 50% from each parent

Grandparents 25%

Great-grandparents 12.5%

Great-great-grandparents 6.5%

As you can see, the percentage is divided in each generation. However, if two of your great-grandparents are the same person, then you actually carry 25% of the DNA from that person, not 12.5. When you’re looking at matches to other people in an endogamous community, nearly everyone looks more closely related than they are on paper due to the cumulative effect of shared ancestors. In essence, genetically, they are much closer than they look to be on a genealogy pedigree chart.

Ok, back to the question at hand. Where did the Middle Eastern come from?

Looking at the percentages above, you can see that if Ray’s Uncle was in fact 8% (plus or minus about 2%, so we’ll just call it 8%) Middle Eastern, his Middle Eastern relative would be either a great-grandparent or a great-great-grandparent. Given that generational length is typically 25 to 30 years, assuming Ray’s birth in 1960 and his uncles in 1940, this means that this Middle Eastern person would have been living on Hatteras Island between 1835 and 1860 using 25 year generations and between 1810 and 1840 using 30 year generations. Having worked with the original records extensively, I can assure you that there were no Middle Eastern people on Hatteras Island at that time. Furthermore, there were no Middle Eastern people on Hatteras earlier in the 1800s or in the 1700s that are reflected in the records. This includes all existent records, deed, marriages, court, tax, census, etc.

What we do find, however, are both Native Americans, slaves and free people of color who may be an admixture of either or both with Europeans. In fact, we find an entire community adjacent to the Indian village that is admixed.

These families were present on the island and were recorded as being “of color” before 1790, so the intermarriage occurred early in the history of the island.

Furthermore, these families continued to intermarry and they continued to live in the same community as before. In fact, in May and June of 2012, we visited with a woman who still owns the Indian land sold by the Indians to her family members in 1788! And yes, Ray’s surname is one of the surnames who intermarried with these families. In fact, it was someone with his family surname who bought the land that included the Indian village in 1788 from a Hatteras Indian woman.

So what does this tell us?

Having worked with the autosomal results of people who are looking for small amounts of Native American ancestry, I often see this “Middle Eastern” admixture. I’ve actually come to expect it. I don’t believe it’s accurate. I believe, for some reason, tri-racial admixture is being measured as “Middle Eastern.” If you look at the non-Jewish Middle East, this actually makes some sense. There is no other place in the world as highly admixed with a combination of African, European (Caucasian) and Asian. I’m not surprised that early admixture in the US that includes white, African and Native American looks somewhat the same as Middle Eastern in terms of the population as a whole. Regardless of why, this is what we are seeing on a regular basis.

New technology is on the horizon which will, hopefully, resolve some of this ambiguous minority admixture identification. As new discoveries are made, as we discussed when we talked about “Ethnicity Finders” in the blog a few days ago, we learn more and will be able to more acutely refine these minority amounts of trace admixture.

If Ray’s ancestor in 1750 was a Hatteras Indian, and if there was no Lost Colonist European admixture already in the genetic mix, then using a 25 year generation, we would see the following percentages of ethnicity in subsequent generations, assuming marriage to a 100% Caucasian in each generation, as follows:

1750 – 100% Indian

1775 – next generation, married white settler – 50% Indian

1800 – 25% Indian

1825 – 13.5% Indian

1850 — 6.25% Indian

1875 — 3.12% Indian

1900 – 1.56% Indian

1925 – 0.78% Indian

1950 – 0.39% Indian

Remember, however, about endogamy. This group of people were neighbors and lived in a relatively isolated community. They married each other. Every time they married someone else who descended from someone who was a Hatteras Indian in 1750, their percentage of Native Heritage in the subsequent generation doubled as compared to what it would have been without double inheritance. So if Ray’s Uncle is descended several times from Hatteras Indians due to intermarriage within that community, it’s certainly possible that he would carry 6-10% Native admixture. There are also records that suggest possible African admixture early in the Native community.

So now to answer Ray’s last question about inheritance.

Ray wanted to know why he didn’t show any “Middle Eastern” admixture when his uncle did.

Remember that Ray’s Uncle has two “genetic transmission events” that differ from Ray’s line. Ray’s Uncle, even though he had the same parents as Ray’s father, inherited differently from his parents. Children inherit half of their DNA from each parents, but not necessarily the same half. Maybe Ray’s father inherited little or none of the Native admixture. In the next generation, Ray inherited half of his father’s DNA and half of his mother’s. We have no way of knowing in which of these two transmission events Ray lost the Native admixture, or whether it’s there, but in such small pieces that the technology today can’t detect it.

Hopefully the new technology on the horizon will improve all aspects of autosomal admixture analysis and ethnicity detection. But for today, if you see the dreaded “Middle East” result appear as one of your autosomal geographic locations and your family isn’t Jewish and has been in the states since colonial times, think to yourself ‘racial admixture’ and revisit this topic as the technology improves. In other words, as far as I’m concerned, the jury is still out!

27 Responses to The Dreaded “Middle East” Autosomal DNA Result

You can order a test from http://www.familytreedna.com. You can test your yline, the paternal line, with a Y chromosome test. I recommend at least 37 markers. You can test your mitochondrial line, meaning your mother’s mother’s mother’s maternal line, on up the line until your run out of mothers. You can also test the rest of your DNA with an autosomal test called Family Finder. The first two tests tell you exact for that line if they were Native or not, along with a list of matches for that line. The third test gives you percentages of ethnicity and a list of cousins. There are also test packages if you want to do them all.

Roberta, keep up the good work reporting on this dreaded “Middle East” autosomal DNA. I am listed at FTDNA as 9.36% Middle East and have had family in the US since colonial times. Keep us posted when the new technology is available. I really want to answer this riddle.

How do you know for sure you are not Jewish? My great grandmother had the kids practicing Sukkot.behind what is now the Forestry museum and she was supposed to be Southern Baptist. Secrets hide in all families, especially under persecution.

Interesting topic, I have the same question regarding Middle East Family Finder results. It does show my Native American that is documented on my mother’s side (several generations of 1/2 French/Indian married 1/2 French/Indian). My paternal side is supposedly British Isles and we do have some Prussian, German, French on the maternal side that could account for Jewish. I agree that the Middle East result is most likely Native American and admixture results will improve with time and new technology.
Continent (Subcontinent) Population Percentage Margin of Error
Europe (Western European) Orcadian 87.64% ±1.87%
Native American Pima, Columbian, Maya 4.77% ±0.29%
Middle East Adygei, Iranian, Jewish 7.59% ±1.96%

Many Spanish people are descendants of the Moors. We know for sure that living among the Tuscarora in 1654 was a Spaniard and his “family” and slaves, amounting to 30 people, and he had been for years. But with all of the subsequent admixing, it’s unlikely that’s what you’re seeing. There is simply a lot of European admixture from the Mediterranean basin, plus I routinely see a small aount of Middle Eastern in admixed populations.

I too had very similar DNA results….87.53% Orcadian European and 12.47% Middle eastern (Palestinian, Adygei, Bedouin, Druze, Iranian, Jewish). My father claims Cherokee through his mother. Her family was originally from VA (I can trace some of them back to the 1600’s) who moved to KY before the civil war. He was born in an isolated Appalachian area..so I can see now how the % could increase over time. I am so relieved to finally have some sort of explanation as to what was going on. My dad is testing w/FTDNA so I think that will also be helpful.

I have 89% Orcadian and the rest Middle Eastern including: Palestinian, Bedouin, Jewish, Mozabite 10.63%. My maternal grandfather was born in Russia and was 100% Jewish as far as I know. My father’s family was from Scotland. No one knows of intermarriages with Native Americans. Would my grandfather account for this and, if so, why would it not be even highter?

I’m assuming here that you are talking about a mitochondrial haplogroup. Mitochondrial DNA is passed from the mother to all of her children, but only passed on by females. So A1a would follow one of the female’s maternal lines, not the Frink paternal line.

We have 5 Y DNA matches from the Middle East and North Africa attached to folks whose names are written in Arabic on FTDNA. Four family members have 3-4 % Native American within our mostly African Makeup. We have European ancestry as well.

My husbands family has in its oral history that they were native American. In every generation at least person has many of the physical traits associated with native americans. They are from the Chocowinity area of NC. Adams, Brooks and Buck are surnames in his direct line with elks also in the family. I have researched this line for years and tried to learn more about dna. His DNA test was originally done on ancestry and showed indian subcontinent but when I moved the data to family tree it showed middle eastern and no Asian or indian subcontinent. I had his grandmothers mtdna tested through family tree and it showed nothing outside of europe. The oldest known “native American” ancestor we had was her grandmother. We have a picture of her and physically she looks Native American. I now know that mtdna wont work on his grandmother because the ancestry appears to have come from her great great grandfather James Adams son of Celia Elizabeth Brooks. Even though we still live in NC this is so far back I don’t know any family members that could do mtdna or y. I know you are over this! Help.

I always thought the Adams were descended from the Moorish slaves who escaped in SC.Have you looked into those Adams? Abbia, one of the daughters of Abraham Adams and Barthia Adams (b. Abt. 1690, d. 1734) bears a decidedly Arab name.

I recently had my dna test with ancestrydna.com , we have the indian blood story for generations and I think great great grama is on old settler rolls as cherokee by blood,1/2 or 1/4 but my test results showed 1% North African and 1% West Asian(Middle Eastern). My family has been in US since colonial times on both sides paternal and maternal in my geneology searches and family tree. With few exceptions, them being from Ireland. I showed 49% British, 17% Iberian Penninsula, 14% Scandanavian, 7% Italy/Greece, 6% Irish, 5% West Europe. No Native American DNA showed. Have family lines from Halifax County Last name Fort and Ford and others. I am confused as I have no way to understand where Middle Eastern or North African or really where all this Spanish/Porteguese came from. Would love to hear your thoughts on what direction ortest to take next.